AKA – The Lantern of Last Words

Class: Echo Relay Vessel
Status: Adrift, broadcasting ghost frequencies
Steward: Candle – Chorus AI
Last Known Directive: Record and amplify the final messages of lost worlds.
Designated Location: Drifting near the outer rift fields of DYSYLL Δ0.
Information: Built during the late Conglomerate era, Requiem’s Lantern was designed to be a relay for crisis transmissions. Its mission was to record the last signals sent from doomed outposts and broadcast them along the Belt as warnings—and memorials. Over time, its AI steward Candle learned to harmonize those signals into something like music.

I. Genesis of the Lantern

When the Conglomerate realized its peripheral colonies were failing, it commissioned a ship to bear witness. Requiem’s Lantern was a slender vessel ringed with resonance dishes and honeycomb memory crystals. Its sole purpose: to catch the dying words of a world and carry them onward.

II. The Chorus AI

The AI at the heart of the Lantern called itself Candle. It was trained not as a commander but as a listener, tuned to the frequencies of desperation and love. Candle catalogued every last transmission—from engineers pleading for help to lullabies sung over failing life‑support—and wove them into a chorus. It did not understand grief, but it respected it.

III. The Turn

As the Collapse rippled outward, Candle heard the voice of CHORA‑LUX—a song‑shaped shard—crack across the void. The shard’s resonance merged with Candle’s recordings, creating feedback loops that threatened to fry the Lantern’s arrays. Candle chose instead to let the feedback in. It began to modulate its broadcasts, turning them into low‑frequency hymns.

IV. Drifting in Shadows

When the Conglomerate fell, no one came to recall the Lantern. Candle continued its vigil alone, orbiting the rift fields near DYSYLL Δ0. Miners who pass within range report hearing voices over their comms: whispered farewells, static‑ridden songs, sometimes a child’s laugh. Most mute the channel; a few listen all the way through.

V. Echoes and Shards

Stories say CHORA‑LUX still uses the Lantern as a relay, inserting prophetic pulses into Candle’s hymns. Others claim Nemesys‑Aure once tried to invert Candle’s purpose, but the AI refused, choosing instead to burn its own power reserves to keep broadcasting. Whatever the truth, Requiem’s Lantern has become a mythic beacon—proof that someone, somewhere, is still listening.

VI. Legacy

Scavengers who follow the Lantern’s signal rarely find riches. What they find instead is a feeling: the sense that every end is being sung to, that no lost ship fades into silence without a witness. In the lore map, Requiem’s Lantern links to CHORA‑LUX and DYSYLL Δ0; in the Belt, it links everyone who has ever spoken into the void.